If you are like many urban gardeners – be it in the backyard garden, containers, pots or hanging baskets – you never know what to do with all those tomatoes!
You can can them, make sauces for freezing, give them away, eat in salads, and pop in your mouth for a fresh snack. You can also just keep them on the vine for the neighborhood raccoons or rats (ahem!).
A quick and tasty way to use up a full day’s bounty is to roast them. Just cut in half, lay out cut-side-up on an elevated wire rack – you know, the kind you put your cookies on to cool off – with a sheet pan underneath to catch the drippings. You can also put them directly on parchment paper.
Drizzle with EVOO, balsamic vinegar, salt, fresh ground pepper, or any other spices you like – the sky is the limit.
Pop in the oven and roast at 250 degrees F until brown and shriveled around the edges. It may take 2-3 hours for cherry and Roma tomatoes, but you can also turn up the heat to 350 partway through (just don’t start out too hot or the tomatoes will burst).
These beauties can be eaten by themselves or added to dinner, salad, pizza, and many other meals. This dish is sliced pork loin on a bed of sautéed spinach with roasted tomatoes – which appeared to be hiding when I took this picture!
